C HAPTER 7 Tropical Agricultural Landscapes Robert A. Rice CONTENTS Introduction Widespread Change in Cropping Area Traditional Agricultural Landscapes Subsistence Cropping Systems The Question of the Small Farm Agroforestry Systems Traditional Agroexport Cropping Systems Coffee Cacao Cane Sugar Bananas Irrigation, Nontraditional, and Temperate Crop Landscapes in the Tropics Fruits, Vegetables, Flowers, Seeds: Quintessential Nontraditional Conceptualizing the Process References INTRODUCTION Landscapes hold within them traces of the constellation of forces to which they have been exposed. Whether natural or managed, the physical landscape is subjected to the dynamism of human agency and natural processes. Agricultural landscapes by their very nature emerge from forces both natural and human. Climate and geography obviously affect the degree and distribution of agricultural imprints upon © 2003 by CRC Press LLC Agricultural Exports (NTAEs) the Earth’s surface (Rice and Vandermeer, 1990). Yet, in the quest to evaluate or understand tropical agricultural landscapes, recognizing the interplay of human agency and natural forces is only part of the equation. There is a hidden landscape as well. It is the socioeconomic landscape lying behind or alongside the physical landscape features. It is what Don Mitchell has deemed the “lie of the land” (Mitch- ell, 1996). In considering tropical agricultural landscapes, it is worthwhile — imper- ative, even — that we seek to understand both the physical and the social. Agriculture, that most direct and intimate complex involving human agency and the Earth, reflects the results of a globalized world in the physical and social landscapes it both creates and absorbs. An array of trajectories linked to food and fiber production contends with realities grounded in specific coordinates upon the Earth’s surface, and through such actions simultaneously recontours agroecosystems and social relations. In short, a restructuring of economies, local and global, works to rearrange the physical and social landscapes. The driving force behind this process, which some call globalizing food, is the “many headed beast known as global capitalism” (Watts and Goodman, 1999). The world’s garden patch continues to expand into ever more remote and heretofore unexploited regions. Those tending it often find themselves drawn into closer contact with forces and interests far removed from their specific locale. Tropical agriculture provides a veritable buffet of examples depicting changes in the physical and social landscapes of this process. As managed lands supplying food, fiber, oils, and seed, tropical agricultural landscapes obviously offer a glimpse into our closest relations with the land. More- over, given the history of much of the tropical agricultural regions, these landscapes carry with them the marks of social relations extending back into colonial times and before. The physical surface reveals both tradition and change — and the quest to interpret them has a rich history in the literature (Parsons, 1949; Sauer, 1963; Denevan, 1992). Some students of these changes either implicitly or explicitly call upon a web of causality approach, in which attempts to see behind the landscape changes are made (Williams, 1986; Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987; Wright, 1990; Vandermeer and Perfecto, 1995). And a technique recently borrowed from sociology is the actor-network theory (ANT), which intriguingly dissolves the distinction between society and nature by giving equal weight to all actors, animate or otherwise, involved in a given system undergoing changes (Woods, 1997; Murdoch, 1997; Sousa and Busch, 1998; Goodman, 1999). One truism prevails: the land and the people who work it confront and conform to the consequences, for better or for worse, of the expansion of the global garden. This chapter aims to lay out recent research trends that have addressed tropical agricultural landscapes and directions for future research. It is organized around the general theme of market forces and, specifically, the degree to which cropping systems have been penetrated by capital-intensive measures such as chemical inputs, mecha- nized harvest, or modern labor techniques. The sections presented focus on subsistence farming, traditional exports, and nontraditional export cropping systems. In a general sense, there is an argument that the hidden landscape changes — the socioeconomic and/or cultural changes that accompany the physical landscape transformations — are positively related to the degree of market orientation. That is, the more a landscape’s © 2003 by CRC Press LLC orientation tilts toward the market or the higher degree of capital penetration involved, the greater the potential for uncovering changes in the physical and social landscape. In presenting recent works that focus upon tropical agricultural landscapes, we first examine traditional systems such as shifting cultivation, agroforestry, and home gardens. A second grouping of traditional systems features a number of agroexport cropping systems, including the spread of permanent pasturelands for beef production. Next, we see how the spread of nontraditional export cropping systems affects both the physical and socioeconomic landscapes in various tropical regions. A final section presents a conceptualization of how the social and physical landscapes can be affected by ever-increasing exposure to global market forces. WIDESPREAD CHANGE IN CROPPING AREA The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization production statistics (FAO, 1961a, 2000a) show an increase in crop area for the 23 primary crops of the world — mainly grains and tubers, many of which are tropical (Table 7.1). On average, the area increase for these crops is 28%. Examining those 25 selected crops that are principally tropical in origin, many of which are cash crops (Table 7.2), we see an even greater average percent increase in area, namely 127% growth across all crops. Since the 1960s, arable land in the world increased 9%. For developing countries, the increase was 21%, with the developing nations of Africa and Asia showing 27% and 12% increases, respectively (FAO, 1961b, 1999b). Latin America as a region during this same period increased its arable land by a whopping 54%. Concomitantly, global food production increased dramatically during the last half of the 20th century. While Africa’s production trend mirrored that of world production by more than doubling between 1960 and 1996, Asia and Latin America increased production nearly threefold (Thrupp, 1998). Production can increase via either more land being put into use or more intensive methods being applied to that already under production (or both). A look at some of the major food, fiber, and oil crop groupings from the Food and Agriculture Organization’s database reveals that where areal expansion remained steady or fell since 1960, production increased due to yield improvement (Table 7.3). But what is behind these changes? On the ledger sheets, such changes satisfy the productionist notion so prevalent to Western ideology. Yet, the underpinnings of these changes involve tremendous alteration of the production process, usually featuring the displacement of age-old practices by labor-saving or yield-increasing activities and inputs. More and more, the components of production — animal traction, animal waste, manual weeding — have been replaced by capital-intensive inputs such as tractors and combines, synthetic fertilizer, and herbicides. It is what Goodman, Sorj, and Wilkinson (1987) refer to as appropriationism. The global information in Tables 7.1 and 7.2 shows crop group trends of tropical agricultural landscapes by region — notably Africa, Asia, and Latin America. For the crop groups citrus, oil crops, and vegetables/melons, we find that in every case © 2003 by CRC Press LLC except for Africa’s oil crop category, the increase in either area or in yields is at least 100% (Table 7.4). Obviously, where area expansion is relatively high, the changes to the agricultural landscape would be evident. Where yield increases dominate, cultivation changes most likely involve chemical inputs. Readily discern- able physical changes to the landscape may prove elusive unless and until soil analyses, diversity assessments of local biota, and examination of forest removal rates are made. One major factor contributing to visible change in many tropical landscapes is the expansion of cattle lands — often via forest conversion. Globally, permanent pasture land totaled 3.4 billion hectares in 1999 (FAO, 1999b), a 10% increase since 1961. For developing countries overall, the increase was 14%. While pastureland area in the developing countries of Africa remained steady during this period, that in Asia increased by 30%. Latin America and the Caribbean as a region show a 19% increase in permanent pasture area for this period (FAO, 1961b, 1999b). More pasture area, of course, means more cattle. The global herd grew by 42% in the last four decades of the 20th century. Latin America and the Caribbean showed nearly a 100% increase in stocks, while Africa’s developing countries increased their herd Table 7.1 Area Devoted to FAO-Defined Primary Crops, 1961–2000 Crop Area Harvested (ha) in 1961 Area Harvested (ha) in 2000 Percentage Change 1961–2000 Wheat 204,209,850 215,180,486 5 Rice, paddy 115,501,150 153,457,686 33 Barley 54,518,640 55,697,658 2 Maize 105,584,151 137,548,910 30 Rye 30,254,816 9,896,288 –67 Oats 38,260,751 14,416,329 –62 Millet 43,394,559 36,161,260 –17 Sorghum 46,009,146 42,805,487 –7 Buckwheat 4,640,230 2,790,409 –40 Quinoa 52,555 68,779 31 Fonio 307,957 363,671 18 Canary seed 91,713 209,050 128 Mixed grain 3,059,440 1,720,448 –44 Cereals NES a 2,261,550 2,582,858 14 Potatoes 22,147,776 18,777,209 –15 Sweet potatoes 13,387,283 9,577,018 –28 Cassava 9,631,856 16,611,913 72 Yautia (coco yam) 23,111 29,969 30 Taro (coco yam) 669,300 1,458,352 118 Yams 1,149,364 3,916,248 241 Roots and tubers NES a 603,400 1,118,521 85 Sugar cane 8,911,879 19,083,690 114 Sugar beets 6,926,098 6,446,987 –7 Total (average for % change) 711,596,575 749,919,226 28 a NES = not elsewhere specified. Source: Data taken from FAO, Agricultural Production Statistics, http://apps. fao.org/, 1961a and 2000a. © 2003 by CRC Press LLC Table 7.2 Area Devoted to Selected Tropical Crops, 1961 and 2000 Crop Area Harvested (ha) in 1961 Area Harvested (ha) in 2000 Percentage Change 1961–2000 Abaca (Manila hemp) 187,036 126,220 –33 Agave fibers NES a 32,100 48,661 52 Areca nuts (betel) 300,557 468,316 56 Avocados 76,297 323,135 324 Bananas 2,030,193 3,844,524 89 Brazil nuts 1,800 1,000 –44 Carobs 223,622 128,380 –43 Cashew nuts 516,550 2,602,401 404 Cinnamon (canella) 37,100 132,970 258 Cloves, whole and stems 80,800 492,984 510 Cacao beans 4,403,334 7,053,169 60 Coconuts 5,234,813 10,778,417 106 Coffee, green 9,755,805 11,505,503 18 Fruit tropical fresh NES a 711,773 1,829,691 157 Kolanuts 155,000 367,800 137 Mangoes 1,275,081 2,759,119 116 Natural rubber 3,879,860 7,308,292 88 Nutmeg, mace, cardamom 73,450 233,396 218 Papayas 111,042 318,409 187 Pimento, allspice 1,136,335 1,822,811 60 Plantains 2,403,073 4,966,230 107 Sisal 887,426 378,794 –57 Tea 1,366,126 2,405,551 76 Tung nuts 59,700 172,850 190 Vanilla 16,483 40,380 145 Total (average for % change) 34,955,356 60,109,003 127 a NES = not elsewhere specified. Source: Data taken from FAO, Agricultural Production Statistics, http://apps. fao.org/, 1961a and 2000a. Table 7.3 Percent Change in Area Harvested and Yields Obtained in Food, Fiber, and Oil Crop Groups, 1961–1999 Crop Group a Percentage Change, Area Percentage Change, Yield Cereals 4.90 124.34 Citrus fruit 227.26 20.14 Coarse grain –5.76 113.65 Fiber crops –4.85 69.21 Oil crops 96.32 112.95 Pulses 10.89 31.48 Roots and tubers 5.17 35.71 Vegetables and melons 72.13 65.08 a FAO groupings. Source: Data taken from FAO, Agricultural Production Statis- tics, http://apps.fao.org/, 1961a and 1999a. © 2003 by CRC Press LLC collectively by 91% (obviously intensifying production, since total pasture area remained steady) and those of Asia saw the herd grow by 39% (FAO, 1961a, 1999a). It is these general changes to tropical agricultural landscapes to which we now turn. We will see that the factors behind these statistical changes linked to land use involve transformations in both the physical and social landscapes. Yet not all agricultural landscapes or the stewards involved are equal with respect to the forces of global markets. Subsistence farmers, a group that still abounds in the worldwide agricultural scheme, face distinct sets of challenges and opportunities when com- pared to their contract-farming brethren more closely allied with global market forces. We turn now to a number of agricultural categories to examine the current status of tropical agricultural landscapes and the research attention they have received. TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPES Traditional agriculture, as Altieri (1990) points out, has captured the attention of anthropologists, geographers, and other social scientists for decades. Some researchers have opined that the accumulated knowledge, technology, and talents associated with traditional practices might better inform developers and decision makers who plan and carry out agricultural policies in the tropics. More recently, agroecologists see a dual benefit in studying traditional agroecosystems. These benefits are that (1) investigation can provide an understanding of the traditional management practices and cropping patterns, which are being lost as a result of landscape changes linked to inevitable agricultural modernization, and can generate important information that may “be useful for developing appropriate agricultural strategies more sensitive to the complexities of agroecological and socioeconomic Table 7.4 Percent Change (1961–1999) in Area and Yield for Selected Crop Groups in Countries of Different Regions and Industrial Status Region/ Category Area/ Yield Cereals Citrus Coarse Grain Fiber Oil Crops Pulses Roots and Tubers Vegetable and Melons Africa developing Area Yield 71 52 177 14 70 37 6 41 56 13 140 –3 133 40 116 50 Asia developing Area Yield 15 176 295 99 –17 214 11 85 70 217 –2 23 –4 124 125 77 Latin America and Caribbean Area Yield 26 124 517 6 28 129 –51 175 257 106 37 20 23 27 60 102 Oceania developing Area Yield –9 48 0 –12 96 168 N/A N/A 21 102 113 40 36 9 120 7 Developing countries Area Yield 25 148 312 47 11 135 0 85 87 150 21 14 39 66 118 76 Industrialized countries Area Yield –6 123 60 29 –15 141 –5 56 151 64 33 139 –60 94 –5 76 Source: Data taken from FAO, Agricultural Production Statistics, http://apps.fao.org/, 1961a and 1999a. © 2003 by CRC Press LLC processes and tailored to the needs of specific peasant groups and regional agroec- osystems”; and (2) ecological principles derived from these studies can inform development of sustainable agroecosystems in industrial nations, helping to coun- teract “the many deficiencies affecting modern agriculture” (Altieri, 1990: 551–552). Subsistence Cropping Systems Subsistence cropping systems are those oriented toward and maintained for survival of the farming family. Based de facto upon small growers’ strategies, subsistence farming systems include swidden (also known as shifting or slash-and- burn agriculture), polycultural systems, paddy production, and agroforestry systems. As market forces expand into remote areas of the globe, many subsistence systems have become modified or eliminated entirely. New plant varieties, agrochemicals, and increased pressure upon forest, soil, and water resource bases work to transform traditional, often indigenous, agricultural practices. More often than not, the land- scapes change accordingly. Shifting agriculture is a case in point. Slash-and-burn agriculture is recognized for its universality (Nye and Greenland, 1965). Researchers in the 1970s and 1980s, estimated that around half the land area in the tropics was modified by slash-and-burn agriculture, with 250 to 300 million farmers involved (Dove, 1983). In Southeast Asia in the 1960s, some 12 million families practiced slash-and-burn agriculture (Spencer, 1966). Today, shifting agriculture is thought to embrace 2.9 billion hectares, and one estimate has a probable total of 1 billion people — more than one fifth of the population of the developing world in tropical and subtropical nations — relying directly or indirectly on shifting cultivation in some fashion (Thrupp et al., 1997). The urgent need for research focused on shifting agriculture has been noted for several decades (Ruddle, 1974; Brookfield and Padoch, 1994). Much work on shift- ing cultivation has aimed to find alternatives to it, seeing it as a threat to biodiversity and global climate change, as well as a poor candidate for sustained production (ASB, 1999). This view rests upon a neo-Malthusian premise, a view rife with assumptions about the operative forces involved in deforestation and its conse- quences, which need to be examined before blaming those directly involved for particular agricultural practices (Jarosz, 1993). In fact, some works point to signif- icant differences in forest management that can be attributed to folk ecology and social relationships with the environment — even when groups are faced with similar exogenous pressures (Atran et al., 1999). A popular attitude about shifting agriculture, reinforced by international efforts like those of the ASB program headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, is that exploding population levels push people into the agricultural frontier and beyond, where forests are sacrificed for a few years of subsistence production. In Latin America, 25 to 30% of the forest cover was lost between 1850 and 1985, with one half of that occurring after 1960. Shifting cultivation accounted for 10% of the forest reduction but ranked well behind the expansion of pastures, croplands, and degraded lands (Houghton et al., 1991). Moreover, these same researchers relate that the greatest uncertainties in assessing the causes of forest reduction came in quantifying the historical rates of degradation and shifting agriculture. © 2003 by CRC Press LLC Undoubtedly, there are instances in which shifting agriculture and an accompa- nying shortened fallow period may be driven by population pressure, but an exam- ination of government policies must also be part of any attempt to understand the forces behind such practices (Hecht, 1985; Jarosz, 1993). Moreover, researchers must spend time in areas to understand the dynamics involved. Shifting cultivation presents an especially dynamic set of practices within tropical landscapes (Dufour, 1990; Thrupp et al., 1997). Padoch et al. (1998) report that a reinterpretation of present practices could be in order for what researchers might report as destructive activity upon the land. They cite their own experience in Southeast Asia, where careful attention to the dynamics in place found that a shortening of the fallow period was actually part of a deliberate plan toward a more productive sawah system. Additionally, we should note that shifting cultivation makes use not only of the cultivation portion of the cycle. The fallow is a resource from which a number of food, fiber, and other products can be obtained (Brookfield and Padoch, 1994). The use of the fallow needs more investigation. The prevailing and dismissive attitude that shifting agriculture is destructive needs to be rethought. Ruddle (1974) noted that swidden could serve as a teacher of land management. Indeed, though much has been claimed about the impact of shifting agriculture upon nutrient stocks in the soil, work on nutrient dynamics shows not only that swidden plots tend to have high nutrient levels throughout the cycle, but that even at abandonment the nutrient stocks are relatively high (Jordon, 1989). Other myths abound about shifting cultivation’s negative aspects, yet most of the preconceived notions are not borne out by the research that has been done (Thrupp et al., 1997). More detailed work on the mechanisms that make shifting cultivation the pre- ferred way of life for so much of humanity is certainly in order. The environmental impact of swidden and the ways in which resources are used in it are two obvious themes that need concerted attention from researchers, as is the investigation of various factors concerning productivity (nutrient cycles, disease and pest manage- ment, ecological interactions within the system, etc.). The Question of the Small Farm Whether a swidden system or a farm permanently situated, a common feature of tropical agricultural landscapes is that of the small land manager. The importance and tenacity of agriculture in general and small producers in particular — especially in the face of ever more industrialized farming practices — has been recognized for more than a century (Kautsky, 1988). Small producers dominate major internation- ally traded commodities based on traditional cash crops such as coffee and cacao (Rice and Ward, 1996; Rice and Greenberg, 2000). And even outside the confines of the tropics, in countries such as the U.S., we find that small landowners are the acknowledged managers of significant numbers of holdings, responsible for crop and cultural diversity, thoughtful land stewardship, and economic vitality (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1998). Perhaps one of the most important factors associated with small farms, regardless of whether temperate or tropical, is what agricultural economists refer to as “the inverse relationship between farm size and output” (Rosset, 1999a,b). Differentiating © 2003 by CRC Press LLC between the conventional measurement of yield (which focuses on a single crop) and total output (which takes into account all products derived from a given unit of land), we see that for many countries it is the smaller farm that prevails. And in terms of efficiency, we also see that large farms do not necessarily outcompete the smallholdings (Rosset, 1999a). Small farms in the tropics can be, and often are, based on simple subsistence. Many regions, however, display vast numbers of small producers involved in some way with market-oriented crops, be they traditional cash crops or the more recent nontraditional export crops such as melons, broccoli, snow peas, cut flowers, etc. (to be addressed below). A common feature of tropical agricultural landscapes is the species and structural diversity of agroforestry systems. Agroforestry Systems Production from and management of agroforestry systems run the gamut in terms of scale, function, and structure — as well as their socioeconomic raison d’etre. The National Research Council (1993), basing its categorization on Nair (1999), identifies three major categories based on structure and function: agrisil- vicultural systems, those combining food crops and trees; silvopastoral systems, those mixing trees with pasturelands; and agrisilvopastoral systems, those com- bining food crops, pastures, and trees. Home gardens, one example of agrisilvi- culture, have enjoyed moderate attention within the agroforestry student commu- nity (Mercer and Miller, 1998). They represent an intimate example of agroforestry, in which the managed or artificial forest lies in close proximity to the farmer’s house. These are time-tested systems that have provided food, fiber, and general sustenance to millions of people in far-flung regions for centuries, yet have escaped focused scientific scrutiny (Nair, 1999). Even though all these categories represent age-old management strategies involv- ing trees, there are many details about their functions that science has simply not addressed. Even within the biophysical and agronomic studies, which prevail in terms of focus, we find descriptive, qualitative reports.* And once we step away from the biophysical and agronomic sketchiness of such systems (Nair, 1999), the economic and sociocultural details, not to mention the ecological value, show an even greater lack of attention. For all agroforestry systems, research priorities should include a better understanding of the interrelationship among tree species used, as well as attention paid to specific interactions such as the competition for light, water, and nutrients (as discussed in Chapter 2, García-Barrios, this volume). Biophysical research dominates the field, with nutrient cycling accounting for a great portion of the work. There seems to be a certain aura of mysticism involved with most discussions, however (Nair et al., 1999). While a substantial body of work exists on nutrient cycling in tropical agroforesty systems, there nonetheless remains a lack of appropriate research methodologies. Evaluation of four types of agrofor- estry systems, alley cropping hedgerow intercropping systems, tree/cropland (park- land) systems, improved fallows, and shaded perennial systems, concluded that we * For instance, at excellent research centers such as CATIE in Costa Rica, CIFOR in Indonesia, and ICRAF in Kenya. © 2003 by CRC Press LLC know trees can help provide nitrogen for crop production. Concomitantly, however, adequate levels of phosphorus are not provided by the agroforestry system. While “major tree-mediated processes of the [nutrient cycling] mechanisms” are known, there is much in terms of the dynamics that remains shrouded — a situation that warrants much more concerted and rigorous research (Nair et al., 1999: 25). The socioeconomic aspects of agroforestry systems, by contrast, continue to receive less attention than they deserve. Echoing this sentiment, Diane Rocheleau (1999) calls for a social science mandate for researching agroforestry collaboratively. Part of this mandate calls for examining agroforestry technology within its social context — a view based on the belief that all science is local. The social context of agroforestry technol- ogies, issues of gender, class, age, religion, race, and ethnicity, must be part of any endeavor to understand the benefits, challenges, and pitfalls of agroforestry. Another tenet of Rocheleau’s mandate is local participation in confronting the complexity of agroforestry systems. An analysis of the first 14 years of research presented in the journal Agroforestry Systems (Mercer and Miller, 1998) reveals that 22% of all articles relate to socioeconomics, although recent years show a gradual improvement in the scope and quality of socioeconomic research focused on agroforetry. To understand these agroforestry landscapes that cut across so much of the tropical agricultural terrain, more rigorous economic analysis based on larger sample sizes is needed. Here it is worth commenting upon the concept of natural forestlands as they relate to historic human agency. Even those pristine tropical forest areas previously romanticized in the popular (and academic) conservation literature have in fact been subjected over human history to significant intervention by culture groups exploiting the resource base (Denevan, 1992; Dufour, 1990). While some might see this as a sullied landscape in some way, the presence of people in forest for millennia trans- lates into a potential treasure trove of local information relating to these ecosystems. That local people today still command huge lexicons of their faunal and floral resources and can employ agricultural strategies that defy assumptions has received little attention (Zimmerer and Young, 1998). Relatively unaffected by the market forces of globalized agricultural production, such populations may be the richest reservoir of knowledge left to us. TRADITIONAL AGROEXPORT CROPPING SYSTEMS A number of tropical crops rank as important export-earning commodities. Some cover significant area; others are relative patches upon the Earth. However, there is a quality issue involved alongside the quantity issue. While total area of coffee, cacao, bananas, and sugarcane combined makes up less than 2% of that covered by pasture (Table 7.5), it is worth noting that coffee expansion often occurs in mid- elevational forests — one of the more biodiverse ecosystems of the world. Moreover, the lowland confines of cacao means that producers target lowland humid forest for expansion (Ruf, 1995), another ecosystem harboring significant portions of the world’s biodiversity. Depending upon how these agroforestry systems are managed, they can either result in total removal of tropical habitat or act, to limited degrees, as refuges for biodiversity (Perfecto et al., 1996; Rice and Greenberg, 2000). © 2003 by CRC Press LLC [...]... Table 7. 6 Irrigated Lands Region 1961 (1000s ha) 1998 (1000s ha) Developing countries Africa developing Africa south of Sahara Asia developing East and Southeast Asia Latin America and Caribbean Central America and Caribbean Caribbean Least developed countries Low-income countries Industrialized countries 101,953 6,602 2 ,70 9 87, 090 9 ,70 4 8,260 3,599 441 5,853 77 ,481 25,8 97 205,358 11, 170 5,169 175 , 874 ... 6,864, 172 10 ,76 2,980 19,460,812 2,326, 871 2,2 07, 065,000 2,254,462,000 3,062,556,000 1,868, 171 2,460,838 1,0 07, 175 10,548,933 960 ,74 5 272 ,632,000 –1 27, 448,000 451,944,000 92 56 10 118 70 14 –5.4 17 a Developing countries only "1998" data are from 1994 Source: Data taken from FAO, Agricultural Production Statistics and Land Use Statistics, http://apps.fao.org/ b Tropical agricultural landscapes are dotted...Table 7. 5 Hectares Devoted to Major Tropical Crops and Land Uses, 1961 and 1998 Crop or Category World Area 1961 World Area 1998 Hectareage Change Percentage Change Bananas Cocoa beans Coffee, green Sugarcane Tea Pasturea Forest/woodlanda,b Agricultural landa 2,030,193 4,403,334 9 ,75 5,805 8,911, 879 1,366,126 1,934,433,000 2,381,910,000 2,610,612,000 3,898,364 6,864, 172 10 ,76 2,980 19,460,812 2,326, 871 ... 14,435 159 ,78 5 41,436 Percentage Change 101.4 69.2 90.8 101.9 97. 9 121 .7 129 .7 190 .7 146.6 106.2 60.0 Source: Data taken from FAO, Agricultural Production Statistics and Land Use Statistics, http://apps.fao.org/ local residents, salinization of large areas, and, often undiscussed, the use and waste of irrigation water itself The aforementioned rise in grain production was coupled to a 2.2-fold jump... even greater, showing a 2 7- fold increase.) Fresh vegetable exports from this region show a 70 0% increase during this same time frame (FAO, various years) Such changes, however, do not benefit all concerned While the physical landscape shows impressive changes that might suggest all is well in the garden patch, several students of shifts in tropical agricultural report less-than-rosy pictures of the socioeconomic... 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Minneapolis, 1996 Murdoch, J., Inhuman/nonhuman/human: actor-network theory and the prospects for a nondualistic and symmetrical perspective on nature and society, Environ Plann D: Soc Space, 15 :73 1 75 6, 19 97 Murray, D., Cultivating Crisis: The Human Cost of Pesticides in Latin America, University of Texas Press, Austin, TX, 1994 Nair, P.K.R., Do tropical home gardens elude science, or is it the other... Altieri, M.A., Diversity patterns of soil macro-Coleoptera in Mexican shaded and unshaded coffee agroecosystems: an indication of habitat perturbation, Biodiversity Conserv., 2 :70 78 , 1993 Nye, P.H., and Greenland, D.J., The Soil under Shifting Cultivation, Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau, Farnham Royal, U.K., 1965 Oglesby, E., Managers, Migrants and Work-place Control: the Politics of Production on... Vandermeer, J., and Rosset, P., Eds., McGraw-Hill, New York, 1990, p 551–564 © 2003 by CRC Press LLC ASB (Alternatives to Slash and Burn Agriculture Program), wwwscas.cit.cornell.edu/ecf3/Web/AF/ASBMain.html, 1999 Atran, S et al., Folk ecology and commons management in the Maya lowlands, Proc Natl Acad Sci U.S.A., 96 :75 98 76 03, 1999 Barham, B et al., Non-traditional agricultural exports in Latin America: . 1 ,72 0,448 –44 Cereals NES a 2,261,550 2,582,858 14 Potatoes 22,1 47, 776 18 ,77 7,209 –15 Sweet potatoes 13,3 87, 283 9, 577 ,018 –28 Cassava 9,631,856 16,611,913 72 Yautia (coco yam) 23,111 29,969 30 Taro (coco. developing Area Yield 71 52 177 14 70 37 6 41 56 13 140 –3 133 40 116 50 Asia developing Area Yield 15 176 295 99 – 17 214 11 85 70 2 17 –2 23 –4 124 125 77 Latin America and Caribbean Area Yield 26 124 5 17 6 28 129 –51 175 2 57 106 37 20 23 27 60 102 Oceania. 132, 970 258 Cloves, whole and stems 80,800 492,984 510 Cacao beans 4,403,334 7, 053,169 60 Coconuts 5,234,813 10 ,77 8,4 17 106 Coffee, green 9 ,75 5,805 11,505,503 18 Fruit tropical fresh NES a 71 1 ,77 3